The Gray Cartridge: Origins Of Ben
by FanFicFoy
Summary: The Nintendo 64 is the hottest console on the market in the spring of 2001, especially in New York, where gaming is becoming the hottest new hobby on the block. Unfortunately, as a New Zelda game is released, young children have been mysteriously turning up dead. Drowned, nowhere near water. The only links are that all of the victims were playing the new Blockbuster: Majoras Mask.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey everyone! Thanks for giving my story a whirl. As a fan of CreepyPastas, I've always loved the fictional tragedy of BEN. Fair warning though, this story is about the origins of the tragedy, and is set, just months after the release of Majoras Mask. So, there will be little gameplay fiction, and more detective work. BUT! If you like BEN, or you just want to try something different, please stick around! Thanks-a-million! The "BEN DROWNED" creepy pasta videos can be seen online.**

_**You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?**_

_** -Happy Mask Salesman**_

March 13th 2001

Detective Elliotts sat at his dimly lit desk. A half burned cigarette was nestled neatly between his ring and middle fingers on his left hand, while his right hand supported his head from slamming directly into his paperwork below. He scratched his head, moving his short, greasy locks from side to side. He looked over to the clock that sat on the corner of his disheveled work space.

2:32 a.m.

Elliotts dragged his right hand across his face and then took a long drag off of the remainder of his cigarette. He'd been working far too much lately, and sleep was something of a distant afterthought. Unfortunately, as a man committed to his work, he couldn't rest until he'd put some dent, even the tiniest bit of progress into his latest work.

The familiar blinking of his desk phone finally forced him to look at it. The light was telling him that he'd not listened his most recent message. The blinking had gone on for hours now, but he knew if he'd listened to the message, he'd have to respond to his wife, asking where he was, and when he was coming home.

Detective Elliotts loved his wife, but unfortunately, his work was consuming him, and he didn't want to have to involve her. Of course, he knew, ignoring her was probably doing far more harm than good.

He finally reached over and pressed the playback button. He rubbed his eyes, as if to try and wipe away his exhaustion, but to no avail. A very angry version of his wife came over the line.

_Seriously? Out again? Don't expect me to wait up for you…You better not be smoking again, either! Whatever, see you eventually, bye. Oh, and I'll just make up another story when your SON asks why his father isn't here to tuck him in…again!_

A loud "clack" ended the message, indicating that the phone had been slammed back onto the receiver.

Elliotts exhaled in discontent, angrily smashing the remainder of his cigarette into the ash tray that was now completely full, on the edge of his desk. His wife knew him too well.

He looked down and picked up a confidential file. It was labeled:

_Marcus Neilsman, Age 12, deceased, water in lungs._

He put the first piece of paper down, and picked up one beneath it.

_Cassandra Seelia, Age 11, deceased, water in lungs._

Frustration began to creep into Elliotts' mind. He'd been dealing with this case for weeks. Multitudes of children, between the ages of 10 and 13, were mysteriously turning up dead in their rooms. As strange as that was, the cause of death was even more absurd. Each child, upon completion of the autopsy, was confirmed to have been drowned by fluid in their lungs. Not just any fluid though, just plain water. H2O.

Elliotts slammed his fist down onto the desk below. Fifteen children…drowned in their carpets or bed sheets? Impossible, and not within the window of time presented. Two months. There was no link between the deaths either. The only small clue obtained was that each child, within hours of their untimely deaths, was playing a N64 console. Unless the consoles were spewing water and hyper speeds, there was no way they were drowning these children. What was happening?

Elliotts jumped in shock as he heard the door from across the room open.

"Jesus, Elliotts, you're still here?"

Elliotts turned around in his swivel chair to see his partner, Detective David Matthews. The two had been partners for five years now. David (or Dave for short) was a rather large and stocky black man, with a shaved head, who always kept the office laughing, even in times of uncertainty and confusion…times like these.

"Dave…you scared the holy hell out of me…Yes, I'm still here. I just can't-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You can't catch a break in this case. But all of that might have just changed"

Elliotts perked up.

"Yeah? How so?

Dave reached to his side and rolled a black cart, with a large cardboard box on top of it, into the room. He rolled it over to Elliotts' desk and sat down in the chair beside him.

"There's been another one…"

"You're kidding me? Tonight?"

"Yeah, man. Just got this from the CSI team…We can't take it out of the bags, but we can at least take a look at what's in here...best we keep this a secret."

Elliotts nodded. At almost three in the morning, any evidence rolling into an office was probably unknown to high ranking members of the force. However, wrong…or illegal even, as it might be, Elliotts was desperate to find answers. He couldn't bear to answer the phone one more time to tell another parent that the case, regarding the death of their precious child, was colder than an Alaskan winter.

"What have we got here?"

Dave lifted the lid off of the box.

"Well, let's see…"

He reached into the box and pulled out what looked to Elliotts as a controller to the N64 console he'd purchased for his eight year old.

"One Nintendo 64 controller…black. This was in the little guy's hands when they found him…"

Elliotts took the plastic encased controller and looked it over. Nothing seemed amiss. He placed it, gently, on his desk.

"What else do we have?"

Dave, again, reached into the box and pulled out another clunky piece of equipment.

"This…Is the console itself. All they know is that it was on when his parents walked into the room."

Elliotts again took the bag and gave the console a quick once over before rolling his eyes and putting it down. Was the evidence team drunk? Why were they bringing him gaming consoles?

"Anything else? Something that might actually point to something that would actually solve this case? Or at least give me something to tell the damn parents?"

Elliotts' voice was now raised.

Dave rummaged through the box, once more.

"Let's see…cords…more cords…damn, this is a lot of cords…Nope, that's it, my friend."

Elliotts closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and slammed both of his palms into his face. Under his breath he sighed his favorite four letter word starting with an F.

"Sorry, buddy, I better get this back…"

Elliotts nodded and reached for the items he'd sat on his desk.

"Whoa, hold the phone, I got something else. Didn't see it under all these damn cords."

Elliotts perked up and leaned forward in his chair. He could see Dave was squinting at whatever he was holding, trying to make something out.

"What? What is it? Dammit, Dave, what the hell is it?"

"Shhh… Hey, don't these Nintendo games usually come with art on the front of the cartridges?"

Elliotts shook his head in frustration, and Dave turned the item towards him.

"What the hell are you-…"

Detective Matthews was right. What he was holding was a gray cartridge, which appeared to have had its label torn off. But it hadn't been ripped off. The cartridge was smooth and had no sticker residue on it. A word that Elliotts couldn't make out was written across the front in a black marker.

"Let me see that…"

Elliotts took the cartridge, wrapped in plastic, into his hand. He held it carefully, as if it was of some extreme importance. He pulled the cartridge close to his eyes and held it under the lamp on his desk.

"It says "Major" or something like that…maybe it's some baseball game? Like, Major League Slugger, or something like that."

Elliotts squinted.

"No… it says… "Majora." But you're right…these games usually do come with a label on them. I've bought a couple for my kid…they all had labels."

Elliotts looked up to Dave.

"Are these bags resealable?"

Detective Matthews leaned his head to the side and gave Elliotts a strange look.

"Are you crazy? You know we can't review this stuff until we get cleared to, come on, we shouldn't even be looking at it now!"

"Well, we've come this far haven't we?"

Elliotts didn't wait for a response as he reached into the box and began pulling out the console's cords. He then carelessly ripped open the evidence bag containing the console.

"Are you insane? Do you want to lose your job?"

Elliotts still wasn't listening. He stood up and ran over to another desk that had a miniature TV on it. He whisked the small TV up and brought it back over to his desk and began hooking up the console.

"Hello? Elliotts? Will? Will? Are you listening? Earth to William 'rogue cop' Elliotts!"

Elliotts wasn't, in fact, listening. He was leaning under his desk plugging the AC adapter into the power strip beneath his desk. On the way back up, he slammed his head on the bottom of the desk.

"Son of a bitch! Dave, hand me that controller, if you would."

"You're out of your mind…I'm leaving!"

"Well, could you hand me the damn controller first?"

Dave starred and Elliotts for a second, shook his head, and sighed deeply. He then walked over to Elliotts' desk and grabbed the plastic wrapped controller. He looked at it for a moment, contemplating on whether or not to hand it over. But he ultimately knew his own curiosity would force him to. He slowly ripped open the bag and removed the controller. He then leaned over and handed it to Elliotts who was on the opposite side of the desk changing the TV channel to 3.

"Thank you…okay, It's on."

Dave watched as Elliotts moved his hand, awkwardly, around the controller. He'd never picked up a video game, and it showed.

"Will…buddy, listen to me. WE. ARE. GOING. TO. BE. FIRED! If they find out about this!"

Elliotts squinted as the TV lit up. The sound was turned off on the TV, but something was obviously catching Elliotts' eye.

"Will…are you listening to me? That's it! I'm done this time!"

Dave turned to walk away.

"Dave…"

"I'm, frikin, DONE, Will!"

"DAVE!"

"What!?"

Officer Matthews turned around once more to see Elliotts rummaging through papers on his desk.

"Ben…Ben, who is Ben?"

"Ben? Hmm…"

Dave scratched his head for a second. Then he snapped his fingers.

"Ben! Yeah, we had a file on a kid named Ben. Not recently, though, it's been at least a few months…November of last year, I think. His death wasn't ruled as suspicious…Why?"

Elliotts was wide awake, he felt adrenaline pumping. He continued furiously grabbing papers and comparing them to one another.

"And what happened to Ben?"

Dave scratched his head again, as if he didn't want to respond.

"Ben…uh…Ben Drowned."

Elliotts heart stopped. He turned his head slowly and looked at Detective Matthews. Then, without warning, he jumped and grabbed the TV with both hands and turned it towards Dave.

Dave looked in horror as he read the screen. The two data files within the game were both occupied. One on top of the other they spelled out, in all caps, screaming:

File 1: BEN

File 2: DROWNED

Elliotts looked down at the TV, and then back at Dave.

"Yeah…I figured that."


	2. Chapter 2

DAWN OF THE FIRST DAY: 72 HOURS REMAIN

6:00 a.m.

March 13th 2001

"Elliotts, come on, you're grabbing for straws on this one. It's creepy. It's coincidental. But there's no way the case and the game are connected."

Detective Elliotts sat and listened as his partner, Detective Dave Matthews, relentlessly tried to pick apart his latest theory in the case of the drowning children. He held a coffee cup in his hand as he stared out the diner's window, into the streets that were being lightly covered in spring rain.

"Hey man, are you even listening to me?"

Elliotts looked away from the window and at his partner.

"I think you're wrong, Dave. Just because we haven't ever seen anything like this before, doesn't mean it can't happen."

"So, what? A Nintendo game is circulating through the neighborhood and killing children as they play? Even if that were possible, what, and I can't BELIEVE I'm even justifying this with a question, would a game be that angry about?"

Elliotts rolled his eyes and took another long sip of his coffee. The night before had been long and, not surprisingly, unending. After the discovery of the strange gray cartridge, Elliotts spent every moment he could compiling information on the mysterious child known as "Ben." From what he'd gathered, Ben was a normal child who had an interest in video games and spent most of his free time playing them. His drowning was a shock, especially to Elliotts as he, himself, went over the file. The death was ruled as unsuspicious, but Elliotts thought otherwise.

"Hey, Will, maybe the cartridge is an incarnation of your wife."

Elliotts lowered his coffee cup and raised an eyebrow at his partner.

"Yeah, man! Think about it. It's like some crazy effigy to her! The cartridge represents her, and you are the player. The Nintendo represents your life, games represent all of the activities you do and must keep track of, and she is your favorite game to play. But she can't always be the center of your attention. Other games, or in your case, mountains of case work, must sometimes take over game time, or "family time."

Elliotts leaned his head back and placed a hand on his forehead, slightly covering his eyes and yawning deeply.

"Too far, Dave, too far."

"Come on, buddy, I'm just trying to get you off of this crazy idea that some piece of plastic is harming people."

Elliotts didn't respond. He was done trying to explain his case and figured that resorting to silence was probably his best option.

"Okay, okay. Look, if you're not going to let it go, can you at least explain to me what your angle on this is?"

Elliotts lowered his head and gave Detective Dave an unenthused look.

"I'm serious, man. I'm your partner, I deserve to know what you're thinking there."

Elliotts agreed with this argument. He'd always been a stickler for transparency, especially when it involved case and work issues. He reached into his briefcase that sat beside him in the booth. He pulled out a large, multi compartmentalized brown folder. He proceeded to look inside and take out several pieces of paper.

"This first picture is something I got off of Google. You have no idea how hard it was working with computers that are still running Windows 96. I wanted to start at the very beginning, so I just did a search on "Majora." Turns out, it's short for "Majora's Mask," The new Zelda game that came out last October. Not surprising, though, I learned that _hidden_ fact when I turned on the game last night. What's actually a bit shocking is that, as you can see by this picture…"

Elliotts laid a picture of what looked like a compilation of many different cartridges, all colored gold, on the table in from of his partner.

"All of the cartridges I could find were gold. Australia got a gray cartridge of the game, but it's senseless to imagine that a child would wait an extra month to purchase a foreign game. It's even more senseless to think that their parents would go along with it, so I'm fairly sure this is an American cartridge. Why it's gray, I have no Idea."

Detective Matthews picked up the collage of gold cartridges and looked it over. Elliotts could tell he wasn't yet convinced. His suspicions were proven true when Dave spoke next.

"So? Maybe it's a special edition of the game, or something? Or, hell, a bootleg. There's a big market for the bootleggers. I mean, damn Will, did you see how poorly written the title was? If you're gonna bootleg, have some pride for God's sake."

Elliotts shrugged. It wasn't a bad argument, but he wasn't done yet. He reached into his briefcase again and pulled out another piece of paper. This time it was a statement from the child's mother. It had been obtained by child services after their investigation found that the death was "unsuspicious." But this is where Elliotts was going to make his case.

"Here, let me read you a brief portion of this statement from Ben's mother during her interview with Child Protective Services. You tell me if it sounds at all loose-ended.

_Ben was always a good boy. He sat in his room most days, he loved video games, they made him feel like he was achieving something. He didn't have many friends, so the characters in his games were his friends. Most days you couldn't even get him out of his room, he was so busy playing games. I'd encourage him to go out with some of the neighbors children, but he was so shy, he never went._

_ When I found him…dead, in our swimming pool. I just figured he'd been swimming with some of the children from the town neighborhood…but something had gone terribly wrong, and they'd just left him there, since they didn't know what to do._

Did you catch it?"

Dave shook his head, no.

"Did I catch what? Exactly? It sounds like a pretty straight forward answer if you ask me. What's there to be suspicious about?"

"Okay, so you're telling me, that after an entire explanation of how introverted her son was, that we're expected to believe that he "_accidentally"_ drowned at a pool party with all of the neighborhood kids?"

Dave looked genuinely disturbed.

"You must be kidding me, Will! You're talking about a mother who had just buried her child. It's a tragedy. Who knows what exactly was going on in her mind? What are you even suggesting?"

Elliotts tilted his head and shrugged conspicuously.

"…No. There's no damn way that she drowned her son. He was all she had. Did you read anymore of the file? Did you read the part about her husband leaving her? He was all she had left. Why would anyone even consider doing such a horrible thing?"

Elliotts quickly grabbed the two pieces of paper off of the table as the server approached.

"Coffee, gentlemen?"

Elliotts, with the hand that wasn't hiding extremely classified information, held out his coffee cup.

"Yes, thank you, he'll have some more too."

Dave looked at Elliotts with an annoyed look, then took a look at his watch.

"Cream and sugar?"

"No, thank you, Black is good."

The server then left the table and moved on.

Dave looked down at his full cup of coffee and then back at Elliotts.

"You do know we have to pay for refills right? Plus, have you checked the time? We've gotta get back to work soon. We can't sit here and play 'Cop Drama' all morning. We're due at the office at seven."

Elliotts perked up.

"Oh, good, forensics will be done with the box by then. We can officially check it out without fear of being arrested."

Dave groaned and looked at his watch.

"Do you have anything else? Or can I please be excused to take a piss? All this damn coffee you keep ordering for me, which I'm not paying for, by the way, is going right through me."

Elliotts looked down into his briefcase one last time. He had plenty of papers, but he knew this was his last chance to make some sort of impression. Then, he found it.

"One last thing, and I promise this is it for now."

Dave breathed out, annoyed, and crossed his arms.

"Fine. But is it real evidence, or just coincidental thoughts?"

"This doesn't have anything to do with the cartridge at all. I did some research on pools on the neighborhood that Ben lived in. I didn't originally start there, but when I saw photographs of the house, more specifically the yard, and their swimming pool, I had to do some digging."

Edmond pulled out another picture, this time of a pool, with a child's body at the bottom. He slid it to Dave who instantly recoiled.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Will! This is fuc-!"

Detective Matthews stopped before he filled the diner with obscenities, looking around to make sure he'd not drawn any attention.

"What the hell are you trying to prove here?"

"Look, I know it's disturbing, but do you think I'd show you something to intentionally screw with your head?"

"I'm beginning to wonder, honestly. What the hell am I supposed to be seeing here?"

Elliotts looked around to make sure nobody was standing near them and then pointed at the photograph. More specifically, he pointed at one of the sides of the pool. It had a depth marker indicating that the body was at the four and a half foot level.

"Ben was twelve, right? Well, most twelve year olds I know, are taller than fifty-four inches tall. Hell, that's what my eight year old is. Now, he's considered tall for his age, but still. Even if the kid couldn't swim, he wouldn't have had a hard time getting to shallower water."

Dave looked at the picture and squinted. He then cursed under his breath.

"Son of a bitch…I never considered that…But, what does that have to do with the drowning of those fifteen…well, sixteen as of early this morning, children? Even if Ben's mother offed him, that still doesn't explain them. Although…it does beg the question of whether or not she should be investigated."

"I'm not sure what the two have in common…yet. But after this, you can't tell me that you honestly think there's a zero chance of them being related. We have a self-aware game cartridge, a mother's story that adds up less and less upon further investigation, sixteen mysterious drownings of young children, all around the same age as Ben, and to top it all off, the cartridge isn't even at Ben's house…making it very strange that it says what it does…"

Dave held his chin between his thumb and index finger as he thought.

"Or someone who knew Ben…one of his friends, maybe, who just couldn't let his buddy go, and felt like he needed to face it somehow. Maybe he put that on the game? Maybe Ben's mother gave it to one of Ben's friends who then donated it…"

"Dave…what friends?"

Detective Matthews' eyes opened wide at this revelation. All of his arguments were cornered, and his friend had definitely done some potent case work. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone.

"Well, if we're reconsidering this woman for murder…we'd better call it in."

Elliotts nearly jumped over the table as he heard this.

"Will, what the hell-!?"

"Shhh! No, we can't call it in…How do we explain that we came to this conclusion unless we admit to breaking into confidential evidence?"

Dave closed his flip phone and placed it back in his shirt pocket.

"Good call…damn, that was close. What should we do?"

"We check out the evidence like we normally would. Then, we hold it for a few days like we're just being thorough. When we turn it back in, we simply tell the chief that one of the files names was Ben, and it inspired us to reopen his case. From there we can just explain the conclusion we came to."

Detective Matthews nodded and pulled out his wallet to pay for breakfast.

"For this one, I think I'll pick up the coffee tab after all…If you just unlocked the key to a murder case, I'll buy coffee all year."

Elliotts nodded to his partner and placed all of his documents. Back into his briefcase. After exiting the diner and hailing a taxi, the two partners sat in silence as they arrived at work. The two dared not speak with such delicate information on their lips. Once they arrived inside, they were briefed on the latest drowning, and after acting as surprised as they could, promptly assigned the box of evidence to themselves.

The day went by slowly for Elliotts as he waited, in anguish, for the next couple of days to pass. The he was so sure he'd found his lead that he could barely stand to sit still. When the work day ended he took the box home and promptly entered his home office. Neither his wife, nor son, were home yet, so he took the opportunity to use the living room TV for his next task…exploring the mysterious cartridge.

Elliotts didn't bother plugging in the Nintendo that came in the box. His son's was already plugged in and he figured it wouldn't make a difference. He sat the box down beside him on the couch and slowly lifted the lid off of it. As soon as he look down into it, he saw was he was looking for. The cartridge was laying, face up, on top of everything. The crude title "Majora" stared at him, menacingly. He felt a chill crawl up his spine as he retrieved it and placed it in the N64 console.

Before he booted it up, he decided to grab a notepad, just in case something seemed worthy of writing down. But, since it was a game, he figured he'd turn it on for five minutes and find nothing but frustration. Nevertheless, he sat the pad down beside him and reached down to flip the power switch on the console.

He turned on the console. He watched the N64 logo pop up and spin around slowly. Then, a strange mask came into the foreground as a wind-like sound effect played. It was quite creepy. Elliotts pressed the start button and went to the title screen. More chills assaulted him as he looked at the screaming names of the two files. He decided to select the second file named: "DROWNED." He didn't feel right selecting the one with a proper name.

The screen went black for a second and the music stopped. Elliotts waited a few seconds and then began pressing buttons. Nothing happened. He figured the game had frozen. Bootlegs were like that, so maybe Dave was right. He knelt down to hit the reset button when he heard a sound effect. A small message flashed across the middle of the black screen.

_You've met with a terrible fate, Haven't You?_

Elliotts squinted in confusion at this title. Was the game starting? He continued to press buttons but nothing changed. He decided to hit the reset button.

When the game reset he was greeted with the same title sequence as last time. He pressed start and was taken to the file screen again. Once more, he clicked on the file entitled DROWNED. Again, the screen went black. He pressed buttons again, but nothing happened. He was beginning to get frustrated when he heard the same sound effect as before, followed by the same message on the screen.

_You've met with a terrible fate, Haven't You?_

Elliotts shook his head in anger as he reached down and pressed the reset button again. After the same title screen, again, he reached the file screen. This time he didn't care about which name he selected, he just wanted something different. He quickly selected the first file named BEN. He was immediately treated to different results.

When the game began, Elliotts' character, Link, was in what looked like a field with a large tree stump tunnel, just ahead of him. Elliotts had played the Zelda games as a child back in the late 1980s so he knew who Link was. He awkwardly moved his hands around the controller and watched as his onscreen character responded. He got a feel for the buttons and even hacked away at a couple of green slime creatures in some grass. As he ran along he noticed something strange in the distance. It looked like three people standing near a building with a giant telescope coming out of it.

As Elliotts moved his character towards the three bodies the game's music stopped. As he got closer, Elliotts saw three, very strange, people standing in front of him. One was a strange little man, who had a massive pack on his shoulders, full of what he thought to be masks. The second was a little woodland creature wearing a hat, and a mask like the one on the title sequence, as well as every gold cartridge he'd seen online. The last little man…if he could be called that, was actually like a little plastic figurine. It looked terrifying with its odd smile and "almost" human face. The figurine was of Link, the game's character.

Elliotts was beginning to feel uneasy. The mixture of no music and a strange green doll were starting to freak him out. He decided he'd better stop playing. But, before he turned off the game, a text box popped up on screen, accompanied with a strange, and creepy laughter. Elliotts looked at the controller, he hadn't pressed any buttons. The text box was apparently speech from the man with the large pack. Elliotts shuddered as he read it.

_You've met with a terrible fate, Haven't You?_

Elliotts almost jumped out of his skin as his character on screen spontaneously burst into flames on screen, accompanied by a screeching yell that was psychologically damning, and instantly died. The words GAME OVER flashed over the screen and then it went black. Elliotts took a deep breath to compose himself. His composure was short lived as he heard the same laugh as before as a new message popped up at the bottom of the screen. This time, Elliotts felt like it was speaking directly to him, and his heart started to race.

_You shouldn't have done that…_


	3. Chapter 3

NIGHT OF THE FIRST DAY: 60 HOURS REMAIN

6:00 p.m.

March 13th 2001

The sound of the front door opening caused Detective William Elliotts to jump in surprise. The same horrible text he'd just seen was still on the screen. He quickly jumped off of the couch and practically leapt towards his son's Nintendo 64. He ripped the game out of the console before bothering to turn the switch off. He looked up at the TV screen, gripping the gray cartridge in his hands. Chills went up his spine as the text still remained on his TV. He could hear the sounds of his wife getting closer and closer to the living room. He frantically reached for the power switch and pulled it back, turning off the console. He looked up again, in desperation. To his relief, the text was gone, and the TV screen was just black. He reached up and manually turned it off, before shoving the cartridge in his pocket and sitting down on the couch, pretending he'd just gotten home. His wife walked in as soon as his backside connected with the cloth surface.

"Oh, you're actually home for once. Good."

Elliotts played dumb as his wife, Joyce, entered the room, carrying what looked like a large bag of groceries. Her tone was that of anger, and her comment, one of sarcasm.

"H-hey honey. How was your day?"

Joyce looked over to Elliotts suspiciously after he said this.

"Are you okay? You sound like someone just scared the living daylights out of you."

"Oh? Y-yeah, I was having a light nap when you opened the door. You startled me a little bit. I'm fine. What's for dinner?"

Elliotts needed to take a deep breath. He was obviously still shaken up about the incident he'd just witnessed with the game. However, he didn't want to draw any attention to himself in the process.

"Are you sure? Why are you sitting in the dark?"

Joyce, after sitting her bag on the kitchen counter, began walking over to a light switch just beyond their kitchen table.

Elliotts hadn't noticed how dark it had gotten, so quickly. When he'd arrived at home, shortly after five, there was still some light out, and although the sun was setting, it wasn't nearly as dark as it was now that the sun had almost completely disappeared for the day. The ominous glow of the game he was "playing" kept him from being completely shrouded in the coming night.

Light suddenly filled the room. Elliotts recoiled and slammed his eyes shut in response to the sudden assault on his eyes. He rubbed them and then looked at his wife, smiling, to try and wiggle away from having to answer any questions.

"My God, Will! You look live you've just seen a ghost or something! You're so pale, are you feeling okay?"

Elliotts quickly scrambled around his mind to try and find an excuse.

"You know…I haven't really been feeling myself lately. I think I might be coming down with something. A couple guys at the office, Dave too, have been coming down with this throat cold. I'm starting to feel a twinge in my tonsils, so maybe that's what it is."

Joyce shook her head, disapprovingly.

"Figures. William Junior is coming down with something, too. On the ride home, he started coughing, so he's probably caught the same thing. These viruses spread like wild fire."

Elliotts felt blood start returning to his skin. He had, as far as he could tell, nailed it. His wife wasn't suspicious, and had even offered him a way to segue into a new topic.

"Is that so? Poor little guy-"

At the moment, a pint sized version of Will walked into the room, from outside. He was drudging slowly towards the couch with his back pack slung onto one arm. He looked tired, and began coughing. He then sat down next to the evidence box from work. Elliotts' eyes shot open. _The box!_ That was going to raise some questions. He quickly took the initiative to walk over and see his son.

"Hey, sport! Mommy says you aren't feeling too well today."

Junior coughed, hard, into his sleeve on his rain jacket.

"Yeah, Mom says she's going to give me some medicine and let me take a bubble bath."

"Wow! That sounds like fun! Make sure you get well so we can go out for ice cream this weekend, okay buddy?"

Junior cracked a weak smile and nodded. Elliotts ruffled his son's hair and gave him a hug.

All in all, Detective Elliotts was a great father. The only problem was…he was rarely ever around. He was one of the most respectable members of the investigation team, and was highly recommended, along with his partner Dave, to tackle tough cases.

"Daddy, what's that?"

Much to his dismay, Elliotts knew what his son was referring to. The Evidence box, sitting less than an inch away. Junior began to reach for the box, but Elliotts quickly blocked his hand and began play wrestling with his son, who laughed out loud in surprise.

"That's just work stuff, little man. Don't worry. Now you better get upstairs and get started on homework."

Junior frowned at this.

"Okay…are you going to be home for dinner tonight, dad?"

Something about this statement cut Elliotts, deep into his soul. He knew his wife was staring directly at him, burning a hole through the side of his head with phrases like: "What did I tell you?" and "See? This is what happens when you're never home!" He didn't look at her, and instead just reassured his son.

"Of course I am! I wouldn't miss it."

Junior smiled and got off of the couch, grabbing his backpack and heading up the stairs of their home. Elliotts could hear the sounds of him coughing as he went.

"So, what _is_ in that box?"

Elliotts exhaled in frustration at his wife's prying. He stood up, grabbed the box, and headed towards his home office, near the front door of their house. He spoke loudly, through the hallway as he went.

"Something the evidence team found at a victim's house. I wanted to have a closer look at it.

"Oh…the latest case? With the…drowning's?"

Elliotts heard his wife say this as he was putting the box onto the floor, beside his briefcase. He wanted to say as little to her as possible about the case. The last thing he wanted to do was get her involved. Elliotts was always exposed to things that were highly disturbing. They never bothered him, he was stricken with a morbid curiosity, but he knew he was strange in that respect. His wife, however, would almost definitely be deeply disturbed by his work. He walked back towards the kitchen, slowly, trying to come up with something to say to deflect the question.

"Yeah, but it turned out to be nothing. Nothing but a box of cords and a Nintendo like the one we got Junior for Christmas."

Elliotts made sure to "conveniently" forget to mention the game cartridge.

"So…You still don't know anything on how those kids…drowned?"

Elliotts was failing at his attempt to kill the subject.

"Well, no, not yet, anyway. But that's why I'm always out so late. I'm trying relentlessly to give this parents something to ease their questions. Plus…This box is from our newest victim."

Joyce gasped and put her hands over her mouth.

"Another one? Since the one two weeks ago? The same way?"

"Yeah…drowned with water in his lungs, mysteriously. Now, the news outlets are spreading some crazy story about it being because parents are leaving their children unattended in the shower. Really? These are preteens for God's sake."

Joyce rubbed her husband's back and patted him on the shoulder, for encouragement.

"I'm sorry for being so hard…It's just difficult to handle Junior alone, sometimes."

Elliotts smiled and took his wife into a hug.

"I know, I know, and I'm really sorry. You have no idea how much I wish I could be here with you two, all the time."

"Well…at least I know our child will always be safe, with a dad like you working so hard to keep people out of danger."

Elliotts looked into his wife's eyes and kissed her. He then walked off, towards his office.

"Dinner will be ready soon, it's just a microwavable lasagna."

Elliotts turned around and nodded, only to continue walking down the hallway. He figured he'd review some files on his laptop to try and make his case against Ben's mother. Strangely enough, it was exactly what he needed to get his mind off of the cartridge. Switching his attention from the "murdered" to the "murderer." Elliotts had stopped trying to find his humanity, long ago. There was no time for emotion in such a business.

The files were, as they had been for the last two months, the same, and rarely helpful. Even with the newfound knowledge of the case with Ben and his mother. Still, Elliotts could feel they were related, the only problem was, he couldn't quite place his finger on the link…yet.

The smell of Italian food wafted into Elliotts' office, but he was far too engrossed to even care about his growling stomach. Even still, to please his wife, he got up, defeated again, and left his office. Dinner was relatively painful. Elliotts ate, but he never tasted a bite of his food. His mind was on his work, as it normally was. Every so often, Junior would cough, prompting his mother to tell him to cover his mouth, but other than that, dinner was silent and awkward.

After dinner ended, Elliotts retreated upstairs and showered. He felt…dizzy. Maybe his lie of being sick actually had some truth in it. After he got out, he grabbed a towel and dried off his hair. It felt good to not have grease assaulting his fingers each time he scratched his head. He didn't even try to ponder how long it had been since he'd showered last time, all he knew was, it probably made his shampoo bottles happy to see him.

Elliotts stood on the drying mat on the bathroom floor. There was a large amount of steam still floating about the air. He walked over to his mirror, which couldn't be viewed due to the condensation, and wiped his towel across it.

Immediately he could have sworn that he saw the face of the little green statue from the cartridge, staring at him in the mirror.

Elliotts jumped backwards and nearly fell into the bath tub behind him. He scrambled back to his feet, knocking shampoo bottles and other bath accessories all over the place, causing a loud ruckus. Quickly he rushed to put himself back in front of the mirror…it was just him.

"Will! Will!"

It was Joyce at the door. She must have heard the banging noises and gotten concerned. Elliotts continuously took deep breaths and rubbed his eyes. He blinked rapidly and continued looking into the mirror, but all he could see was a very tired version of himself starring back. When he was sure that he was composed, he took one last deep breath and opened the bathroom door.

"Yes, honey? What's wrong?"

Joyce looked extremely confused and annoyed with the nonchalant response of her husband.

"What the hell do you mean, 'what's wrong?' Were you wrestling a bear in here or something? It sounded like you were trying to break down the damn wall!"

Elliotts moved his eyes around, acting as though his wife was clearly overreacting.

"Joyce…I dropped my shampoo bottle and tried to grab it. I didn't catch it and instead knocked it into all of the other bottles, razors and…"

Elliotts opened the door more to show his wife the large amount of feminine bath items accumulating in and around their bathtub.

"Whatever the HELL else you call all of this stuff."

Joyce gritted her teeth in anger. Elliotts could tell that she was beginning to suspect something else was going on, other than what he was willing to divulge. Even still, she just rolled her eyes, cursed him under her breath, and walked back towards their bedroom.

Elliotts closed the door and sighed. He splashed some water on his face before looking into the mirror again. It was, still, just him. However, now that the steam had dissipated, he could see just how red and tired his eyes looked. He was in serious need of sleep.

He brushed his teeth and did a quick shave, removing the stubble of three or so days of unkempt facial hygiene. After refreshing his face with some after shave, he trudged out of the bathroom, into his master bedroom, and plopped down into his side of the bed. The sheets felt wonderful. He looked over to his wife, who had turned over, in an attempt to ignore him. He was too tired to care. He close his eyes and almost instantly fell asleep.

It seemed like he'd only closed his eyes for two minutes when Elliotts cracked his eyes open. The digital clock read 5:58 a.m. and that was close enough to six for him to get up. He slowly reached over and disabled the alarm, knowing that his wife didn't have to work that day. He figured she deserved to sleep in, given how angry he had made her the night before.

As he got dressed in a pair of fresh pleats, and a button up shirt, something didn't feel quite right. His mind felt foggy, and for some reason, he felt…sad. He boiled it down to not having enough sleep, despite the night's rest he'd just woken up from. He figured he'd need to go to sleep earlier next time, to allow his body to catch up.

He slowly walked down the stairs in his house. As he passed by the Television, he turned it on, expecting to watch the news. He continued to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. But something started to feel odd.

Elliotts looked over on the television screen. The young blonde girl who did the news was standing there, as usual. However, she wasn't talking. There was no sound, and the girl just stood there, staring into the camera, as if she'd had her very soul sucked from her body. Elliotts walked back over to the TV and made sure it hadn't frozen. It hadn't, he could see some leaves being slightly jarred by a gentle breeze in the background. But the girl remained frozen.

"What the hell…say something…"

Elliotts said as he stood in front of the TV with no explanation for what was going on. Finally, after five minutes or so of the creepy staring contest, the girl started to speak…she sounded as though she'd just lost every bit of hope in her life.

"In other news…more children have turned up drowned…no developments have been made up until this point…but one this is for certain, it's a terrible, terrible tragedy."

Elliotts' eyes widened. Another child had drowned while he was sleeping? Furthermore, NOBODY called him to let him know? He was furious. But just has he pulled out his cell phone to call his partner and chew him out, the girl spoke again.

"One this is for certain, though, in these terrible events…_You shouldn't have done that…"_

Elliotts froze. He must have heard the girl wrong. The channel went to commercial, leaving Elliotts in complete shock. He could feel his heart beating in his ears. He was terrified. He quickly turned on the lights to the living room, as fear of the darkness around him crept in. He slowly walked over to the coffee pot and filled up his travel mug. He secured the top and decided it was time to leave. He figured he should go immediately to work and get the information on the victim that nobody felt they should tell him about.

He quickly left the house, forgetting what he'd watched on TV. He got into his car and began to head towards to office. Along the way, he figured he'd listen to some music to clear his mind. He turned on the radio and was greeted with a very excited radio DJ talking about a new song.

"Alright, Alright, Alright, everyone! Gooooood morning! I know it's early, and I know you're tired, but I think we'll all wake up once we hear the brand new song from the hottest new boy band in town, The Lone Boys! This is a scratch off of their brand new album: Drowning without you."

Elliotts immediately felt a chill run up his spine. The album must have just been named that by coincidence. He drove on, and listened to the DJ speak more with his overly chipper morning attitude.

"Here it is folks! Brand new, you're hearing this for the first time on this show! This is The Lone Boys and their new single, which is sure to be a hit: _You shouldn't have done that…_

Elliott nearly drove off of the road. The voice, when saying those terrible words, went from chipper to morbidly empty in, literally, an instant. Something was going on, someone must have been playing a trick on him. Elliotts sped up and tried as hard as he could to cover the gap between him and his office. He turned off the radio and sat in silence. He had no desire to hear such a song.

Finally, after a short drive, Elliotts reached the office. It was odd, he'd gotten there in record time. Traffic had never been so…thin. Then it dawned on him. There was absolutely no traffic at all. No school busses picking up children. There should have been, it was a school day. There were no cars zooming to make it to work on time, nor were there any people cutting him off in traffic. In fact, there wasn't a single car in the entire city, it felt like. Elliotts got out of his car and looked around. Silence. He shuddered as he walked up to the front door of the building he worked in.

To his surprise, when he opened the door, he was greeted with everyone he normally saw on a regular basis. He sighed in relief as he walked in, waving at people, and saying good morning to his co-workers. Finally, something seemed normal.

When he got into his office, he sat his coffee and briefcase down on his desk, and decided to go see who dropped the ball on forgetting to mention the latest drowning. He walked out of his office and saw Dave and his chief, along with some other members of the team huddled together with their backs to him. He figured he'd better go see what they were looking at. It was probably the new case.

"Dave, you bastard, how could you forget to call me last night?"

Elliotts yelled this as he walked towards the team. Dave didn't turn around or respond. Elliotts continued approaching.

"Dave? Dave, don't ignore me, dammit."

He reached Dave. He still wouldn't turn around, it was as if everyone was trying to keep their faces hidden from him.

"Dave?"

Elliotts reached out and touched Dave's shoulder. He immediately jerked around, along with the other members of the team. Elliotts was mortified as he saw them. They were all wearing the mask that the little figure beside the statue of the game was wearing. The same mask on the opening screen of the game. Elliotts yelled and fell onto his back, trying his best to get away. But the team just walked forward, slowly, and cornered him.

Slowly, but all in unison they began to chant.

"_You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"_

"_You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"_

"_You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"_

"_You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"_

Over and over they chanted. Getting closer and closer to him. He slammed his fingers into his ears and screamed.

"Stop it! Stop it, please!"

Then, Elliotts felt a tiny hand on his shoulder. He felt a dark, demonizing, presence draw close to his ear. The horrible, bone chilling voice of a very young child assaulted his very sanity, whispering:

_"You shouldn't have done that…"_

Elliotts spun around and came face to face with the very same statue from the cartridge. The horrible, plain, smile and the dull, empty eyes ripped and gnawed at his soul. He heard the laughter from the screen where he'd first read those horrible words.

Elliotts' eyes flew open. He sat up and immediately began to hyper-ventilate. He jerked his head to the side. He saw his alarm clock…it read 3:02 am. It was only a dream… He looked over. Joyce was still rolled onto her side, asleep. He took a deep breath and grabbed his cell phone, rushing into the bathroom. He dialed Dave and anxiously listened to the tone. Soon, a very tired and annoyed Dave came across the line.

"You better have a damn good reason for waking me and my wife up at three in the morning, Will…"

Dave sounded monotone, tired, and extremely irritated. But Elliotts didn't care. He had to clear something up.

"Dave!"

Elliotts caught himself, and made sure he didn't yell, again.

"Dave, nobody else drowned, did they? Like, tonight, I mean."

A long sigh came across the other line.

"Hell. No. Are you drunk or something? Damn, man. Normal people are trying to sleep."

Elliotts closed his eyes and gave his own sigh, but this one was of relief.

"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I just…had this crazy nightmare-"

"You called me because you had a night mare? Will, you're a grown-ass man!"

"I know! Listen to me…I played that cartridge we found…it really disturbed me. It was like it was…haunted or something, you know?"

There was a silence that followed. But soon enough, Dave responded.

"No, Will. I don't know. I don't believe in ghosts, nor do I believe in fairies, haunted game cartridges, or the Loch Ness Monster! Are we done? Can I go back to sleep? Even if you're not done, and you probably aren't, this can wait until morning…"

Elliotts rubbed his eyes.

"Sorry man…but that thing really freaked me out."

There was another long pause, and then a response.

"Well, Will. Maybe _you shouldn't have done that…"_

Dave hung up. Elliotts nearly dropped the phone.


	4. Chapter 4

** Hello everyone! Sorry for the lengthy delay of this latest installment. Rest assured it will not happen again! I appreciate everyone's continued support, and truly hope you enjoy this. Thank you!**

DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY: 48 HOURS REMAIN

6:00 a.m.

March 14th 2001

Will stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom. The sound of his alarm clock alerting him that it was time to get up, was barely noticed by him. He'd spend the last three or so hours trying his hardest to clear his mind and go back to sleep. But, as he'd felt when he was his son's age, the nightmare lurked in every corner of his room, making him feel that that eerie and disturbing face upon the statue was going to be there when he opened his eyes. As a result, he'd blinked as little as possible, and the obvious side effect of this was that fact that he was unable to sleep. Another sleepless night, coupled with a long day of trying to warm up a cold case. Hardly a desirable assignment.

"Will, are you awake?"

Will heard Joyce say, amid a yawn and a lacing of anger. He was awake, and from what he could hear, Joyce was still most likely bitter from the night before. He shook his head slightly, to bring himself back to reality, and turned over to slap the alarm clock, before responding to his wife as calmly as possible.

"Yeah, I'm up. Sorry, honey. Guess I finally got in some good sleep. So good that it's hard to wake up."

Will gave a forced yawn after saying this in his fakest groggy accent. This lie was definitely more painful for him though. Will would have killed for some decent sleep. However, even in his zombie-like state, something in him was more relieved than ever to see light beginning to filter in through his blinds. The sun coming up meant that he didn't have to spend too much time in the dark, constantly seeing the dead and lifeless face of that…doll, every time he closed his eyes. As for being exhausted, coffee was a wonderful medication for that.

"Shouldn't you be getting junior ready for school? The bus comes at about six thirty, doesn't it?"

Joyce shrugged, obviously still more asleep than awake.

"I think it's best he stays home today. With that virus going around, he shouldn't be around other kids-"

Joyce's explanation was interrupted by a yawn.

"Besides, he'd get sent home anyway if the teachers thought he might have a fever. If he gets worse I'll take him to see the doctor."

Just then, Will heard coughing coming from Junior's room. It sounded worse than last night, but still not too serious. But still, Joyce was probably right. One day wouldn't kill him.

"Yeah, you're probably right. Anyway, I better get going. The boss probably wants us all there as early as we can manage, given the new circumstances of the case."

Joyce turned over and wiped sleep from her eyes, looking very concerned.

"You mean…the new victim?"

Will, after having déjà vu from putting on the same shirt and pleats he'd worn in his dream a few hours earlier, tried to deflect this question, attempting to keep his wife as far away from his work as possible. He tried to play it off.

"Yeah, probably, but unfortunately this has kind of become routine. That's the rough part of being in the detective business sometimes. Unfortunately it's not all about smoking cigars, and wearing a big trench coat, like it is in the movies."

Joyce actually chuckled at this and laid her head back onto the pillow. Will could tell that she was soothed by this little bit of humor. After giving his wife a reassuring wink, and kissing her for the day ahead, Will decided it was time to head downstairs and make the miracle nectar that would keep him awake.

After walking down the stairs he began to head for the kitchen, but not before he checked the news. He was intending to seamlessly turn on the television while continuing to the coffee pot. But as his finger connected with the power button, he was instantly reminded of the horrible dream, and how lifeless and destroyed the female anchor had looked. He skipped the news and just went for the coffee pot instead. Besides, he was a detective. Any news worth knowing would surely be waiting for him at his desk.

After filling up his travel mug, scarfing down a bagel, and packing a little of the leftover lasagna for lunch, Will headed for his home office to pick up the evidence box. He reached down and removed the lid off of the box and was greeted with cords. He squinted in confusion when he saw them. Where was the cartridge? Upon further thought and rerunning the events of the previous night in his head, Will remembered that he'd left it in his pants from the previous night. They were all the way upstairs, laying in the bathroom.

"Uhg, damn…"

Will hurried back through the living room, and up the stairs. When he reached his bedroom, he hesitated in opening the door. What if Joyce was awake? What if she asked him what he was getting? That'd only lead to more questions. He slowly turned the knob, and peered into the room. Joyce was still laying there, motionless and asleep. Excellent. He silently tip-toed in and turned for the bathroom. He didn't make a sound as he slowly knelt down and picked up the pants he'd worn the night before.

_Klack Kuh-Klack, Klack!_ Elliotts' heart stopped as the echoing of plastic slamming into bathroom tiles reverberated off of the walls. The cartridge fell out of the pants pocket and bounced noisily on the floor as a result. Will quickly plucked the cartridge from the floor and closed his eyes, waiting for Joyce to come storming into the bathroom, asking him question after question. He gritted his teeth at the thought. But…the door never flung open, and the scolding didn't come. Will slowly opened up one of his eyes, and then the other, and peeked outside the bathroom door. Joyce was still asleep. _There __**is**__ a God…_ Will thought as he tip-toed out of the room and back towards the stairs.

Before Will could disembark down the stairs for a second time, he nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard his son begin coughing again. This time it sounded bad. So bad the Will nearly turned around to enter the room. But he decided against it. Joyce would definitely take him to the doctor to get things checked out. Still…the words of his son asking him if he'd be home for dinner the previous night, reminded him of just how little time he got to spend with his family. This, too, almost made him turn around…But…No, the victims, the families…he couldn't waste time. He continued downstairs.

This time, as instinct, Will hit the power button on the television as he passed it.

"…Other news, drowning, and unfortunately it _could_ happen to a child you love."

Will stopped in his tracks and did an about-face to look at the television. He saw the news anchor from his dream, but this time she was as chipper as she'd normally looked. This, although Will knew this sort of publicity would undoubtedly hurt the case, was uplifting. He listened in.

"Reliable sources are telling us now that another child has drowned for no apparent reason. Authorities are telling us that they still have no leads on what could be causing this terrifying and strange phenomenon, but medical experts are advising all parents to keep a close eye on their children, especially when it comes to anything dealing with aquatic activities. They are now telling us that water _could_ be accumulating in lungs over periods of time, in what could potentially be a parasitic virus, or worse…"

Will clenched his fists. He felt as though the anchor woman was calling him out somehow by saying that there were no new leads…and as for "reliable sources," who was she talking about? Nobody in the office in their right mind would tip the press without seeking permission from the chief. But just as soon as Will thought it couldn't get any worse, a surreal event happened on screen.

"We have here a woman who chooses to keep her name anonymous, but is willing to divulge a story that is both hard for her to talk about, and also a wake-up call for parents of children who frequent trips to the pool or beach."

The news anchor nodded and the camera panned to the left. Will immediately felt a sense of looming dread come over him. A woman was revealed to be standing next to the anchor, and she had no emotion on her face. Her hair was black, and nowhere near kempt, and various bits of it stuck out. She looked drained and had wrinkles of sleeplessness on her face. She was wearing a very non-flattering black dress that only made her look more like a corpse. She took the microphone and began to speak in a monotone. Her voice, along with his appearance was rattling and disturbing to Will.

"My son drowned last year…I wasn't home when it happened. Parents, please, watch over your children, especially when it comes to a pool, or a large body of water. You never know what could happen. They say that even Olympic swimmers drown, so always watch over your children. Some of you may be thinking that it couldn't happen to your children, you're wrong. Every day I'm faced with the terrible decision I made…and all I can think to myself is _you shouldn't have done that…_"

Will's throat went dry.

"W-what?"

Will continued to look at the screen, and the woman who'd just spoke these mortifying words. Was this….Ben's mother? There was nothing that would lead to that fact, but somehow, Will could feel it. Even stranger was the fact that the camera was still fixed on the woman, just starring hard into the camera, as if…as if she had spoken these words straight to Will's face. It still felt like she was looking at him. Judging him. Had the television frozen? No, it hadn't. The arm of the news anchor could be seen moving about to try and get the woman to return the microphone to her, but to no avail.

"Okay, well, thank you so much, we're going to go to commercial for a second, and be right back with the weather. Thank you."

The news woman said this, and it could barely be heard since she had no microphone. It was obvious that this scenario wasn't planned. The arm of the news woman was now making rapid cutting movements, to indicate that it was far past time to go to commercial. But the woman just kept starring forward…almost directly at Will. But then, Will saw a sadistic smile cross the woman's face, just before the screen went black and then played a Cheerio's ad. It was only for a split second, but Will could feel absolute terror crawl up his spine in an icy fashion. He could have sworn she was looking at him…but how?

Will quickly shook his head and pressed the TV's power button to turn it off. He immediately jumped back as he could have sworn, for a second time, he saw the face of the plastic doll from the cartridge, in the flash that turned off the television. But when he blinked, the screen was just a dull gray. He felt like he was going insane. He took a deep breath and shook the thought from his mind. It was impossible. Will had never seen this woman before in his life. He knew it was time to leave. He promptly headed out the door, and proceeded to speed off to work.

Traffic was, contrary to Will's nightmare, an absolute circus. But, as if by some miracle, Will made it to work in the nick of time. He quickly rushed up the stairs of his office building and was relieved to see familiar faces of people from his team. None of them were wearing crazy masks, either.

Will greeted a few people and then reached his office, he entered and then laid all of the stuff on his desk before opening his travel mug to gulp down the last of his coffee. As he pulled the chair out from under his desk, he saw something sitting in it. It was in a plastic package facing down. He picked it up and turned it over. It was a cute smiley face with a switch below it. It had a two pronged plug attached to it to go into a wall outlet.

"What the hell is this?"

Will thought out loud.

"It's a nightlight Will, and I suggest you use it. You know, with your nightmares and all."

Will whisked his head up to see Dave leaning in the doorway with a cup of coffee in one hand, and a sarcastic smirk across his face. He took a sip of his coffee, chuckled, and continued his patronizing talk.

"It's from my wife. She wanted you to have it so you don't have to call me at some ungodly hour of the night, next time. Oh, she's pissed off at you for that, by the way."

Will gritted his teeth and slammed the nightlight into the trashcan beside his desk. The plastic light could be heard breaking in two as it connected with the metal bin.

"Whoa, man. It was a joke, don't take it so seriously…are you alright?"

Dave's voice was now more serious in a blend of concern and anger that said "damn, I spent $3 on that for this joke…"

Will, on the other hand, didn't care for jokes at the moment, and was only concerned with finding the best way to go after Ben's mother for murder.

Dave could sense this. He looked behind him, in the busy epicenter of the office and then made sure no attention was being paid to him, and then stepped into their office, and shut the door.

"'The hell is wrong with you, Will? You've been weird as hell since the other night…Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

The answer was immediate and snappy. Will knew this, and he knew Dave was only trying to hell. After all, he _did_ wake him and his wife up the night before for some irrational nightmare. He decided to play damage control.

"I mean, yes, I'm good, Dave. I'm sorry. I just haven't been getting good sleep lately. Ever since this case started, all I can think about is getting somewhere with it."

Dave nodded and sat down on the edge of Elliotts' desk.

"You gotta chill out, Will. You're a top dog around here. If the chief starts thinking you can't handle yourself, he's going to send you home for a while. Maybe you should consider a vacation. It might do you some good to get away for a while. Spend some time with the wife, and junior, you know?"

Will shook the possibility away.

"Nah. It wouldn't do me any good. I'd just be working the whole time, and Joyce would go on and on about how much money we wasted for me to sit in a hotel room and go over case work…"

Dave sighed and took another sip of his coffee.

"If you say so…Any luck with that 'Major A' game?"

Will promptly thought of his character being set on fire and hearing the horrendous laughter of a subhuman being ripping through his ears.

"It's 'Majora,' and somewhat. I popped it into my kid's N64 and gave it a whirl…you're probably right, as far as a bootlegging goes. That thing did nothing but freeze, and it totally buzzed out and killed my character on screen. It was extremely disturbing, really. I tried both files, and the second one just took me to this black screen…it kept saying..._you've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?_ I swear Dave…it was like it was talking to me, directly."

Dave's eyes widened and his raised an eyebrow.

"Damn, son. That's some freaky stuff right there. But, what did I tell you? It's probably some bootleg from a flea market that someone's mom got at a discount. How about the first file? Anything?"

Will's mind played the sadistic laugh and his character writhing as flames consumed him, ending the game. But he did his best to respond with composure.

"Yeah. That's when the game bugged out on me."

Dave blinked a couple of times and then shrugged with a slight shutter, indicating obvious signs of disturbance.

"Weird, man. But hey, that's one less piece of evidence we have to worry about, right?"

Will nodded, but it didn't explain the connection between the cartridge and Ben's mother.

"Bootleg or not, we need to find some way to have the chief sign off on us questioning Ben's mother. Any ideas?"

"Not a damn one. This one's gonna be hard Will. If we go tell the chief we want to bother some distraught lady over the name of a character in a video game, he might put _US _at the bottom of a pool…"

Will knew this was right, but the coincidences were just too many to ignore.

"Maybe we don't need the chief to sign off on it. If we can get a confession, we might not get grilled too badly."

Dave's eyes widened.

"What do you mean "confession"? Are you suggesting we sneak off and go interrogate this woman by ourselves?"

Will nodded. Dave didn't agree.

"Yes. Wonderful idea. Let's break the law…again, and go grill a woman that we don't know, about a murder charge…while we're at it, we can start selling crack and dog fighting…yeah, does that sound good too?"

Dave's sarcastic, yet perfectly reasonable remarks, had become something that Will had learned to get used to. He responded calmly and without much enthusiasm in his voice, as he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.

"No dog fighting, I'm against animal cruelty, but if crack keeps you awake, then I'm in. Anyway, what other choice do we have here? Don't you want to get _something _out of this case other than disturbing images and dead children? Plus, if we solve this case, there would be one hell of a promotion for you."

Dave rolled his eyes and sat his coffee cup down.

"Will, I'm willing to admit that this could be real, the murder charge, not you're crazy allegations about the video game. But I'm also a law abiding citizen, and I'm going to remain that way. Until we have some more concrete proof, and the chief's approval, I'm not going to bother this woman, I'm sorry, Will. But, no. Not yet."

Will nodded. He completely understood where his partner was coming floor, but it didn't make it any easier to take. He changed the subject.

"Hey, did you see the news this morning?"

Dave perked up, immediately.

"Oh, yeah! With that cat that can play guitar?"

Will shook his head and gave Dave a strange look.

"No, I must have missed that. I'm talking about all that B.S. over parents not watching their kids take a bath."

"Ah, no, they were just starting to talk about it when I left, but I had to head out to get here on time. What happened?"

Will thought of the events that took place, and they scared him to think about, but perhaps talking about them would make them as ridiculous as Dave would undoubtedly deem them.

"Ben's mother was on…"

Dave nearly fell off of the edge of Will's desk.

"Are you sure it was her? Why? What the hell?"

Will wasn't _completely_ sure it was Ben's mother. But something inside him told him that it was her…he could feel it. It was a sort of hunch that one could bet their life on. Will was willing to argue this case.

"Well, I'm not completely sure. The woman wanted to remain anonymous, but they showed her face, and just blocked the name. Odd, I've never seen that done, but regardless, that's not the weird part. She was talking about having a son that drowned in a pool when she wasn't around…"

Dave rubbed his chin with his pointer finger and thumb, listening intently and mentally taking notes. He nodded of Will to go on.

"Now, I know we can't pin an identity on her, just based on that testimony. The unfortunate reality is that children drown…it happens. But for some reason, it just felt like it was her."

Dave responded as he normally did, with a cornering answer. The difference was, that this time he sounded concerned.

"Have you ever seen Ben's mother? Do we even have a name for her?"

Will nodded. He thought back to Ben's case file, and began to get frustrated with the lack of good detective work done by the investigators of Ben's untimely demise.

"No, we don't have a name for her…the boneheads in charge of collecting evidence and information completely neglected to get a name for her. How the hell did this slide through the cracks? In fact, we don't even have a last name for Ben…so we're pretty much at rock bottom here."

Unfortunately, before Will had gotten bumped to his current position, it wasn't uncommon for many important tidbits of information to "accidentally" get forgotten, by the previous team. But this…this was just grossly negligent on the part of the team, to the point that it barely could be considered a case, and more of just a rumor. Dave concurred.

"Well, it looks like we're locked here, buddy. I'm not happy with how the previous team ran things, but we can't deal in rumors, only facts. We may, unfortunately, have to let this one go…"

No. Will wasn't going to let that happen. If he had a chance to bring just to even _one_ drowned child, he was going to do it. Legally, or otherwise.

"So you wouldn't be willing to pay his mother a visit, even if I had the address?"

Dave sighed and scratched his head.

"No. Hell no. Can I make that any more clear? You know those cops in Law and Order that always risk life and limb at times to solve a case? Well that's not us. We're two, nearing middle aged detectives with families and retirements to think about. Again, we're in the business of facts, not fakes. I'm sorry Will, but if you can't get me proof, then I'm afraid I'm going to have to step away from this one."

Dave nodded and then picked up his coffee cup from Will's desk. He walked towards the door and opened it, letting the sounds of this busy office enter in. He turned to Will one last time, before heading off to pick up another task.

"Will. You're a good detective. Don't blow this…Good partners are hard to come by. Chill out…"

Then, he was gone, leaving Will alone in the office, as the door slowly shut.

Will then stood up, walked over to his office window, and looked down at the busy streets below. He saw that the diner he'd been to yesterday was fairly busy. He noticed that a light rain was beginning to fall, that was nice, rain was soothing. There was something about being in his office, with the light off, on an overcast day, that made Will feel calm, and he needed it.

Contrary to his wife's wishes, Will opened his desk drawer and pulled out something he'd needed even more than coffee. A cigarette. He pulled this out, along with a lighter, and pulled out a portion of the broken nightlight from the trashcan. The dome part of the smiley face would act as a nice ash tray. He opened a window, to filter out the smell of smoke, and then made sure all of the blinds to his office were closed…smoking inside was generally frowned upon.

After lighting up, the bittersweet feel of tobacco sending a light smoke through his lungs, was somehow the most calming sensation he'd ever felt. He blew his smoke out of the window and began to contemplate his next move. Should he abandon the case? Or take it upon himself to go after Ben's mother… Nothing clearly indicated a connection between her and the drowning children…but something within Will told him, it did.

Suddenly Will's desk phone began ringing, and it nearly caused him to leap out of the open window. As if the person on the other end could smell the smoke on his breath. Will frantically smashed the remainder of the cigarette into his makeshift ashtray, and tossed the butt out the window. He picked up the phone, and answered professionally.

"Detective William Elliotts."

"Hey, it's me…"

It was Joyce, she sounded down and far less than pleased.

"Hey, is everything okay?"

There was a long sigh on the other end of the line,

"Yeah, it's just junior. I got him up after his coughing woke me up. It's getting pretty bad…he's coughing up this clear mucus now. It's gross, I know, but I just wanted you to know that I'm going to be taking him to the doctor, just to make sure it doesn't get too much worse."

Will felt relieved. Not at his child's misfortune, but that something was going to be done about it.

"That sounds good to me. I heard him cough a few times before I headed out this morning. It sounded pretty harsh, so it must be getting rough for him. I'm sure the doctor can give him an inhaler if it gets too bad…"

Joyce could be heard agreeing on the other end.

"Yeah. Are you going to be home again, tonight?

A decision was now being forced upon Will. Was he? If he was going to tackle the case, he need to do it quickly, and it could potentially force him to be out, late into the night. But, even with his uncertainty, he blindly answered.

"I plan to be, provided work doesn't go too haywire on me. But you should plan as if I will be, I'm feeling good about it."

Will, again with his strange perception, could feel that his wife was smiling on the other end. He was beginning to see just how much it meant to her, when he was around. After saying "I love you's" and such, Will hung up the phone and sat back in his chair, closing his eyes. He knew he couldn't do this for too long, or he'd fall asleep on the job. It was easing to close his eyes and know that light was still in the room, keeping him safe from the shadows of his exhausted mental capacity.

Then, from nowhere, Will got the answer to his contemplation. Yes, he was going to tackle this case. But, he'd try to do it properly, the first time around. He immediately thought of all the information he'd compiled, as well as the cartridge's save file names. If he could convince the chief of that the information he'd compiled with the pool's depth level and confliction of witness testimony, he might be able to pull this off. If the chief asked, then he'd just say he was inspired to look into it because of the names on the cartridge…it was strange, and probably a long shot, but it wasn't a sure fire failure either.

"Screw it…what other choice do I have, here?"

Elliotts grabbed another cigarette and lit it up. This could be his victory smoke, he was feeling lucky. He then opened the box to hook up the cartridge once more, to get a picture of the two save files for his boss. That way he could get the evidence, and this, God-forsaken, gray monstrosity away from himself.

Once he had the necessary components to set up the console, he walked outside to the desk where he'd gotten the small TV, from the first time he'd looked at the evidence. It's owner: "Detective Nelson" was out on vacation, so Will figured he wouldn't mind, or even know, that it had been used. He quickly grabbed the small television and retreated to his office. He got under his desk, plugged everything in, hit his head, again, on the way up, cursed under his breath, and finally resurfaced, ready to get his evidence. Now he just needed one last piece…the cartridge.

"Where did I put it?"

Will checked the box and realized that it wasn't there. He then felt around in all of his pockets…nothing. He figured he must have left it in the car. After retrieving it, ninja style, from his bathroom, it would have been an absolute shame to forget it. He took time to finish his new cigarette, flipped the butt out of the window again, and then headed for his vehicle.

The rain was still falling, and it was cold, too. Will shivered as he left the awning over the stairs to his building, allowing the water dripping off of the tip to splash onto his back, into his shirt, and deliver a shockingly cold blast to his spine. He quickly rushed to his car and saw the cartridge sitting in his passenger seat. In his rush to work, he'd obviously forgotten it. He quickly retrieved it and then shut his car door.

When he looked up, he saw the diner that he always frequented, it was very busy this morning, even more so than when he'd checked a moment ago. It wasn't unusual, the service was great, and the coffee was outstanding. But then…something seemed odd. As diners normally had, the entire front of the eatery was windowed...and in the booth, near the furthest corner, where Dave and himself had been sitting a day earlier. There sat a lonely child, from what Will could actually see.

Will squinted. He was right, there _was_ a little boy sitting there. He was wearing a green shirt, and looked pale. Will stood upright, and looked around in the diner to spot a parent. He saw none. He figured that the guardian had probably gone to the restroom. He kept his eyes on the boy, but the boy just looked down at the table in front of him, never showing emotion.

Will was about to go across the street and make sure that someone was actually with this little boy, but before he could move, he saw someone come from the restroom area, and sit in front of the boy. The boy, however, didn't even aknowledge them. He just continued to stare, ever downward, at his shoes. Finally, the server walked by, and spoke to, what Will believed to be a woman. He could see long hair, but he didn't see a face…but the server never even looked at the little boy. She just spoke to the woman, and continued on.

This made Will feel very strange. He knew he needed to get back inside, and he couldn't even notice how wet his clothes were getting. It was as though he was frozen in time, watching this strange event. The mother was eventually brought her order, and she began eating…the boy never ate, nor moved, nor responded. The woman continued to eat…and then stopped, as if something had caught her attention, and she didn't want to respond by whisking around quickly. Will squinted harder and peered closer. The woman clinched her fists, as if in anger…the boy didn't move. Then…The woman turned her head, and stared straight into Will's eyes, straight through the window, the traffic, and directly into Will's very soul. It was her. The woman from the news….Ben's Mother.

Will ducked down, out of instinct, beside his car, and the water within his clothes began to wring out, due to his twisting motion, reminding him how wet he had gotten. His breath was fast, and he felt like he was being watched. He slowly got back up, and looked into the diner. The woman was still there, eating, no longer staring in Will's direction…but the boy was gone. Vanished.

Fear rushed into Will's conscience, and he quickly ran upstairs. The entire office gave him dirty, and confused looks as he tracked water and mud through the work area. He didn't care, he made a bee line straight for his office, slammed the door, turned on the lights, and immediately went for his bottom desk drawer, which had sweats, and an extra pair of work clothes, for…occasions like this.

He quickly finished, and discarded his wet clothes into a mesh gym bag in the drawer. He hardly had a care for them. He then picked up the cartridge, which had gotten wet, from the edge of his desk, where he'd thrown in upon reentry. He dried it off quickly, and popped it into the console. He was done messing around. He flipped the switch and immediately lost his adrenaline rush. The wind sound…that mask…The odd music that followed. It was all so…creepy.

As the screen instructed, Will hit the "start" button. He was instantly confused. The two files: Ben and Drowned…were gone.

Will panicked, had the water damage cleared the memory? Or maybe it was when he ripped it out of his son's N64. He quickly hit the reset button…same result. He did this again and again begging the two names to come up, so he could make a case…but nothing happened. Anger took over and Will slammed his fist into the console…the music on the titled screen froze and played a single note, much like a CD player did when the CD was scratched. He'd obviously caused this with the blunt force of his fist. He wanted to cry. He finally had a plan of action, and it was gone…But then…The single tone of the title screen stopped. The screen went black, and the N64 logo began to spin…then the whooshing noise…then the Mask…The console had reset itself.

"What the?"

Will said under his breath…the screen was now prompting him to press start, again. He did. But this time, instead of the nice little chime, that played normally…the maniacal laugh of a strange creature played. Then, Will dropped the controller, and gulped hard. His heart began to race and his hands shook. He looked at the files. They were no longer empty. This time they gave a different message. One much more terrifying…

File 1: YOUR

File 2: TURN


	5. Chapter 5

NIGHT OF THE SECOND DAY: 36 HOURS REMAIN

6:00 p.m.

March 14th 2001

The work day was over. Detective William Elliotts nervously prepared to leave for the night. He had spent the entire work day in fear. Was the game openly threatening him? Yes…it must have been. _Your turnnext?_ Proper grammar wasn't even used…which, for some reason, only made the situation more unnerving. Surely not, though…it was just an inanimate object, thrown into the spotlight by a horrible sequence of events…or so he told himself. After seeing the bone chilling message, spelled out in the game's save files, Will decided to take it upon himself to spend the next few hours researching the effects of ripping a cartridge out of a Nintendo 64 console.

The task proved to be pointless. After all, N64's weren't particularly cheap, so people weren't haphazardly ripping games out of them, (go figure) even given the next generation of consoles coming to light. All of this, to Will, was assumption, given that he knew little to nothing about video games. But if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that if he had possession of such a nice thing, the last thing he'd want to do, would be to ruin it by abusing it.

Only one thing seemed to fit the bill for "Side-effects" of misuse of the console's cartridges. It had been dubbed "The crooked cartridge glitch." _Now, what the hell is a 'glitch'?_ Will thought, at first. But after some careful research, he realized that it mostly dealt with trying to force the game to allow a player to progress without specific rules being met. Although, it _did_ say that cartridges could be permanently damaged, if the "trick" was done improperly. Side effects could include: Save file corruption, memory loss, and could even render the game unplayable (in rare circumstances). After more thought, Will figured that forcefully ripping a game out of the N64 would have probably fell under the category of "improper technique." Will figured this must have been the case, but how odd and coincidental it was.

_That woman…that boy…and right before I plugged the console in._ Will thought as he picked up the mesh bag with his soaking work clothes, from earlier. After tossing an empty pack of cigarettes (which had been a new pack when he'd come in that morning) into the trash can beside his desk, Will took a look at the evidence box. Should he take it home, again? Maybe Dave was right about taking some time off. Besides, what would it hurt? He could always check out the evidence again when he came back.

"Man, you better hope Joyce doesn't smell that entire pack of cigarettes on you, tonight."

Will lifted his head, startled, to see Dave leaning in the doorway, again. He noticed Will's jumpy response.

"Calm down, bud, jeez, it's just me."

Will took a deep breath, the first one of the day that wasn't accompanied by a drag of smoke. He responded, attempting the play the situation off as another side effect of sleep deprivation.

"Sorry, you startled me a little bit. I'm fine, really. I just need to get home and go straight to bed. I've really been neglecting my sleep…"

"Save it, Will."

Will was taken aback with Dave's blunt force smack down of his excuse. Will played dumb.

"Save what? I'm not kidding."

Dave began shaking his head in disbelieving fashion.

"I won't pretend that something isn't wrong with you, Will. You didn't come out of your office, except one once. When you came back, you were soaking wet. You locked yourself in your office for over six hours with that kid's toy, and didn't bother to tell me what you were working on. Is this because I said I wasn't willing to go after that woman?"

Will heard genuine concern in his partner's voice. But it wouldn't matter. Even if Will wanted to, he couldn't possibly tell Dave that he felt like a game cartridge was threatening his life. But…he could tell him about the boy in the diner. It was another long shot. But Will figured that letting Dave know something, might buy him some time, and maybe some of his credibility back.

"I saw the woman from the news this morning, in the diner across the street. That's why I was soaking wet."

Dave squinted and tilted his head in confusion.

"I'm not following you, Will."

Will quickly rethought his words, and tried again.

"Remember how I told you that I thought the woman on the news this morning was Ben's mother?"

Dave rolled his eyes, and nodded, responding sarcastically.

"I vaguely remember it."

Will ignored Dave's sarcasm and continued.

"Well, the reason I was soaked when I came back inside this morning, wasn't because I _really_ like getting my ass soaked. It was because I needed to get something from the car, and I happened to look into the diner, across the street. That's where she was."

"Ben's mother?"

"Yeah…or, I think it's her, at least. She's my top candidate."

Dave actually seemed to become engaged in the conversation at this point.

"What about her? You do know it's impolite to stare, right?"

This time it was Will who rolled his eyes. He was growing tired of being patronized by his partner, but he realized how strange and obtuse his arguments were, so he continued.

"Well, she was eating-"

"In a freakin' diner? No damn way!"

"Let me finish, dammit! Dave, do you want to hear this or not?"

Dave chuckled, proud of his joke, but nodded. It was obvious to Will that Dave was just listening to get a kick out of the situation. Will knew that if he had any chance of making Dave take this seriously, he needed…something. Then, he knew. Dave was a gentle giant of a man. He had taken the claim of Ben's mother being a murderer very seriously, but was also bound by the limitations of the law. Will knew he only chance of seeming sane…and keeping the tiny ember of a case he had, alive, he needed to see which on Dave cared for more…the law, or children.

"There was a boy with her."

Dave immediately went serious.

"A boy? Well that solves it, doesn't it? Ben was, as far as we know, an only child, right? It couldn't have been his mother."

Will gulped and prepared to tell the "supernatural" end of the encounter.

"Yes, he was. But he didn't move, at all. He just sat in the booth, and stared downward, as if he were a child in the corner, at daycare. He looked so depressed. Dave, it was horrendous to see, and the mother, if it _was_ his mother, just sat there eating, not even acknowledging his existence. She wasn't even sitting in the booth with him when I saw him, at first. She came from the bathroom. Who leaves their child alone in a busy diner?"

Dave could been seen trying to mentally prepare an argument. But it was clear to Will that he had, at the very least, inspired thought. Curiosity soon got the better of Dave.

"So what happened? An irresponsible mother and child eating breakfast. Not even remotely uncommon here in the city."

Will turned around to his window and peeked through the blinds, over at the diner. It was getting too dark to see inside the windows. The setting sun was giving off too much of a glare.

"Then…she looked out the window at me. I swear, Dave. Right. At. Me. It was like she knew I was looking at her, or something. She even smiled."

"Well, that was nice of her."

"No…Dave, it wasn't a 'Hi how are you?' kind of smile. It was more of a 'I can see you' kind of smile. It really shook me up."

Dave just stood for a moment, mentally going through Will's story, bit by bit. It still seemed too coincidental, and not a result of anything Will had investigated up until this point.

"Well, Will, she could've been doing it to mess with you. If people stare at me for too long, I get a little annoyed, too. Maybe she was trying to scare you. It looks like she nailed it."

Will wasn't convinced.

"Maybe so. But she knew I was looking? Through a diner, four lanes of traffic, and my car?"

Dave chuckled.

"Have you ever considered that she was looking at someone else? Will, you aint that pretty."

Will continued peeking outside the window, as the sun set, evermore.

"She wasn't. Call it 'investigator's intuition.' She was definitely looking at me. It rattled me so bad, that I ducked down beside my car for a minute…Then, when I got back up, she was eating again, normally, like it never even happened…but the boy was gone."

Dave scratched his head, not fully understanding Will's statement.

"Gone?"

"Yeah, gone, poof, not sitting there anymore. It was like he wasn't _ever_ there."

Dave looked around. He felt a spooky vibe and chill envelop him.

"What did the boy look like?"

Will turned around and shrugged.

"He looked like…"

Will broke his sentence and his eyes flew wide open. He threw up a finger, pointing past Dave.

"He looked like that!"

Dave flew around, about face, and threw up an elbow, as if expecting it connect with someone sneaking up behind him. But it didn't instead, he saw that a television, near the opposite side of the building, sitting on a large rolling cart, was on. He turned back around to Will, to scold him.

"You son of a bitch, Will! I nearly had a heart-"

"Shhh! shut up, Dave! Look!"

The television set on the rolling cart was doing a recap on the morning news. It was two anchors sitting at a desk, with a picture of the woman from the interview in the top corner, and a picture of a boy, the exact same boy from the diner, in the other corner. Will figured they didn't want to replay the awkward footage of the poor anchor woman's arm going crazy to try and get the microphone back, and decided to use still images, instead.

Will bolted past Dave, out of his office, across the work area, and turned up the volume. He then watched, wide eyed, as if the anchors were literally going to say: "See Dave? Will's right, you need to pursue this case."

"Our top story tonight is one that you've all, unfortunately heard quite a bit about. The drowning of several local children, without any clue. Our station was lucky enough to speak with a woman, who unfortunately lost her son to drowning, about her awful experience. The woman requested to stay anonymous, but briefly detailed the effects this horrible tragedy has had on her life."

The picture of the boy was then put full screen.

"This was her son, whom she's also asked to be kept anonymous. She only wishes for parents to look into this child's eyes, and imagine the horror of losing something so precious. She hopes her story will urge parents to keep a close eye on their children. And now over to sports…"

Will turned around to see Dave.

"That's him, Dave, that's the kid I saw."

"Will, calm down-"

"No! I'm not going to calm down! I saw the kid, Dave, I'm not blind!"

Dave took a step back. It was clear that he was beginning to become concerned for Will, and himself, for that matter. He slowly raised his hands, lowered his voice, and tried to quell the situation.

"Okay! Okay…Look, I believe you…It just seems impossible."

Dave looked over, on the wall beside him, and saw a light switch. The sun was almost completely set, and darkness was anything but desirable. He flipped the switch, illuminating the room. He looked forward, at Will, who pacing across the floor.

"You're absolutely, positively sure, that it was him? Will, how do we even know that that kid was Ben? They didn't release any names, at all."

Will stopped pacing and thought for a moment. Then, he remembered that he _did_ have one picture of Ben. One that he hadn't viewed that many times, due to its awful nature. He slowly began walking back to his office, to retrieve the his brown, multi-compartmented brown folder from his desk. Dave slowly stepped to the side, and let him pass, watching him carefully, as if on guard.

Will reached his desk. He didn't want to look at in this folder, again. He wanted this case to warm up…but he feared what he might be getting himself into. He slowly reached for the bottom drawer, and pulled it out. It creaked with age. Then, there it was, the folder. Will recoiled his hand, and just stared at it for a second.

"Well, are you going to show me, or not?"

Will looked up at Dave, and nodded. He took a breathed and pulled the folder out of the drawer. He shut the drawer and opened the accordion like container, slowly going through each compartment, until he froze, seeing what he needed. Will's eyes went wide. He grabbed the photo with a trembling hand, and dropped the folder, allowing it to spill an assortment of printed pictures, files, and notes, he'd taken.

"It's him, Dave. It's him."

Dave slowly walked over, and gently retrieved the printed picture from Will's trembling grasp. He looked it over, for only a second, before nearly having another heart attack. It was the picture he'd seen in the diner. The picture of the child, drowned at the bottom of a (much too shallow) pool. He was wearing the exact same shirt as he had in the picture, on the news. Dave didn't know it, but it was also the same shirt he'd been wearing when Will saw him in the diner.

"Dammit, Will. It's really her. You weren't kidding…"

Will now had his elbows on his desk, which his chin resting on his thumbs, thinking. He knew he had Dave's support. But now what? Would they go after her? If they did go after her, catch her, and force a confession, would it hold up in court? More importantly, would it solve what started this entire fiasco…would it serve as a link between the mysteriously drowned children?

All of Will's thoughts must have been visible on his face, because Dave could see the cogs of mental work, turning.

"What are you thinking, Will?"

Will heard this, but his answer was absurd. What did he really think? He thought this woman had drowned her son, for whatever reason, and her son was somehow…speaking to him through means of supernatural ability. Through cartridges, and even making his physical body visible for him to see. But Will knew he couldn't present this. Dave would have him sent to a mental hospital. He had to play this off "normally."

"I think she's a psychopath, Dave. I think she's seeking out children that look similar to her own drowned son, and playing dress up with them, making them think that what she does to them is normal."

Dave shook his head. He didn't buy it.

"These are almost teenagers, Will. By now, surely, they know not to mess around with strangers."

Will rethought for a moment. He was out of ideas. He mentally panicked to try and keep his argument alive. But what could convince Dave? Will didn't have to think long. As if by a miracle, Dave changed his tone.

"Why am I even asking this? This woman is obviously unstable. If she's harming children, she needs to be stopped, regardless of the cause. I don't normally go on hunches…but I'm trusting you on this one, Will. How do we do this?"

Will almost cried tears of joy. For the first time, since this horrible ordeal began, he didn't feel alone. But now a new problem was presented…how _were_ they going to pursue this woman? Will was sure that, at the very least, the previous team got an address for this woman. Then, it was a matter of choosing the right time of interrogatingto interrogate this woman. It would obviously have to be an "off the clock" project. That way, some loophole might protect his and Dave's jobs, if something went south.

"I'll pull Ben's case file. Once we have an address, we can go…tomorrow night, that way…"

"Yeah, I understand. Wouldn't want the chief to know we did something like this, especially on the clockjob."

Will nodded.

"Anyway, I have to get home. The jJunior is sick, and I told Joyce I was going to be home for dinner."

At the moment, the phone rang. Both Will and Dave nearly leapt out of their skin. Will grabbed the phone, immediately, and took a breath before he answered. He was pretty sure who it was.

"Detectiv-"

"It's Joyce."

Will was right. He gave Dave a thumbs up, letting him know that there wasn't much more they needed to discuss for the evening. It was common knowledge between them now. Tomorrow night, the case would be settled. One way or another. Dave nodded and gave a thumbs up before leaving the office for the night.

"Hey baby. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah…well, mostly. Junior is coughing like crazy. He keep hacking up mucus. It's to the point where it's literally running down his chin and soaking his shirt."

Will felt a twinge of fear. The natural fatherly instinct within himself was fearing for his son.

"What did the doctor say?"

Joyce sighed on the other end.

"They just said it was a chest cold that needed to run it'sits course. They said it was actually a good thing that the mucus was coming out so easily. That way it won't harden and keep him sick, longer."

Will sighed in relief.

"Thank God. I'm going to be home soon. Me and Dave were just watching the evening news to make sure we were up to date on things."

Will could feel Joyce smiling, again. It was probably nice to know that someone was going to come and help her take care of her sick son.

Will didn't want to divulge any more information thant he had to. Sohe he quickly changed the subject.

"Hey, Joyce, I have to get off of the phone. The night guy's trying to get in my office to clean. I'll be home soon."

Joyce agreed, and they exchanged "I love you's" and hung up the phone.

Will stood up, and didn't bother to unhook the console, and merely took the cartridge with him. Something drew him to the cartridge…something that he didn't even realize. In fact, when he put the cartridge in his coat pocket to leave for the night, he didn't even know he'd done it. He exited the office, locking the doors as he went, empowered by have Dave on his side, for the first time.

When Will got outside, he was immediately treated to a cold blast of wind. The weather from earlier had improved, by it was still icy cold outside…odd for a March. He pulled his coat tighter to his body and talked over to his car. He unlocked the door, and opened it. Before he got in though, he took a look across the street. The diner was slow, now. The lights lit up the dark street, and there were only two or three patrons enjoying dinner. Will looked at the booth from earlier, where Ben's mother was sitting. He shuttered and turned to get into his car.

However…something stopped him. The diner brought back some, almost forgotten, but terrifying memory. Throughout the day, even locked in his office, Will could feel…something...watching him. At one point, while he was smoking with the window open, he was turned towards the door of his office, allowing the smoke to waft behind him, out into the open air. This was only moments after the cartridge had administered its "threat" against him. While puffing away and trying to catch his breath from the shock of the incident (a sequence of events that would undoubtedly cancel one another out) he could have _sworn_ that someone was looking at him from outside his window.

When will got up to look, though, he only saw one building that could offer any sort of view into his office. Sure enough, as he scanned the windows, floor by floor, he was pretty sure he managed to catch a glimpse of a person ducking away from view and bolting into the shadows, out of sight. Will didn't think too much about this fact. Lots of people worked in the large buildings within the city. He, even, commonly found himself starring out the window from time to time. However, upon further investigation, his calm explanation was revoked. The building in question had been condemned, and completely shut off from the general public…whoever was there obviously wanted to be there for a specific reason.

The oddities of the day didn't end there, either. Periodically his desk phone would ring. Normally this wasn't anything of concern. Will was constantly answering calls about cases, and so it was normal to receive a moderate number of callers. On this day, however, he'd been receiving calls almost every twenty minutes. These calls only lasted a few seconds, but were extremely odd and out of place…and creepy. Will would answer normally, but the other end of the line would be blank. So blank that it was almost surreal. Just before Will would hang up, he'd hear the clacking of a phone being put forcefully back onto a receiver.

Will felt cliché thinking it. But he could have sworn he was being "followed" the entire day. But, his thoughts we cut short by another cold gust of wind. This gust wasn't just uncomfortable, it was cutting. The breeze wasn't blowing at any high speed, but it felt like a body had just slammed into him, nearly knocking the breath out of him. The "presence" of the cold wall of wind lasted only a second, as if someone had knocked into another person, as they were fleeing, before getting back up to continue running…or maybe it was another threat. Will immediately felt intense fear, as if he were cast into the wrong place at the wrong time. He turned to quickly get into his car.

He was stopped by a body. He nearly screamed.

"You're a detective aren't you?"

Will couldn't speak, he was being nearly pinned to the body of his car. It took him only seconds to process what was happening. Ben's mother was standing right in front of him. In the same clothes, with the same destroyed look. Only now…she looked enraged. She spoke again, in the absence of Will's response.

"You've been looking at me, Detective, haven't you? I saw you staring at me. It doesn't take much to know that someone is watching you. I don't appreciate it detective. Not one bit."

Will couldn't believe what he was experiencing. He felt as though his life were being threatened. He slowly reached down for his waist, and his firearm.

"You won't shoot me, Detective Elliotts. I know you won't. But let me make something clear to you. You're dabbling in something you aren't prepared to handle. Believe me. I'm not ignorant."

Will froze. It's like she could see his moves as they came to his mind. Who was this woman? How was she so vigilant? Will nodded, for fear of his life. The woman continued.

"You have a family, Detective Elliotts. Think about them."

The woman then turned, and began walking away. Will took a second to try and put into perspective everything that had just happened. It had ended as oddly and as quickly as it had beguan. Suddenly, a second wind of confidence came over Will, and he stood up straight, responding sternly.

"You just threatened an officer of the law. That's a pretty serious offence. I could take you in, you know? And _now _yYou can certainly expect a visit from my partner and I 't heard the last from me."

The woman didn't turn around and threw her head into the air, laughing manically. She then spoke. It sounded like she was speaking through sheer pleasure out of Will's obvious fear.

"Detective, detective, detective… Do you know how many people there are in this city? Do you think my little threat will even be considered? Over the murder cases, the assaults, the _serious_ cases…"

The woman turned around and gave Will the same icy stare as she had…twice now. She spoke once more, in a monotone, thatmonotone, which chilled Will, even more to the bone, than before.

"The children drowning…Do you think they'll take me, a distraught lady, whosewho's lost her son, in to custody? You're delusional Detective!"

Will's throat dried up. He trembled at these words. It was as if she had him completely trapped in his own game. Her points were factual, and her threats, cutting. She'd threatened his family, and essentially called him out over his attempt to scare her away. If it wasn't positive before, it was now. This woman murdered her son. Will could feel the presence of evil, dripping off of her. For the children…for the children, he summoned something within himself, some hidden confidence.

"You know what you've done. We've got everything we need on you…you're as good as done. I'll make sure they slide a needle in your arm!"

The woman smiled even wider, and her teeth glared, as if each word were someeone sweet, life giving, nectar.

"Detective…is that a threat of your own? Good…"

The woman turned around, and began to walk away, but she stopped, once more, to speak one more thing.

"…_You __**really**__ shouldn't have done that_My son loves me, Detective…it would sure be a shame if something happened to yours._"_


End file.
